


Up A Winding Stair

by always_angel, cascadewaters



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Spanking, friends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 03:25:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_angel/pseuds/always_angel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/cascadewaters/pseuds/cascadewaters
Summary: Stiles decides to look for Derek after finding out he's wanted again. He finds him, and is told to stay away because something is chasing Derek; committing the murders he's been accused of.  As usual, Stiles doesn't listen.This contains spanking of a younger pack member by an older former pack member. Don't like? Don't read.





	Up A Winding Stair

Up A Winding Stair

By Kat and Sparx

Stiles resisted the urge to let out a full breath; he'd managed, by the skin of his teeth, to talk his way onto the task force hunting for Derek, and now here he was, in the mountains that straddled North Carolina and Virginia.  The FBI did not suck at tracking, which gave him both pride and dismay.  They were close to Derek... now how to find Derek while making sure that the others *didn't* find Derek?

Stiles had spent the past two days misdirecting the team in little ways, but he was exhausted.

Derek, for his part, was busy trying not to be found. He'd been running from a particularly nasty spider creature that he simply couldn't take down on his own. He really missed being an alpha right now.

He had briefly considered going home to Beacon Hills and asking Scott for help, but he didn't want to put that burden on the teen. No, the Hales had done enough to Scott and the pack.

Stiles was used to navigating through forestry, though his teammates didn't seem to have bothered to find that out.  His natural spazziness made it relatively easy to fake clumsiness out here, but between his own weariness and dehydration, and being unused to the mountain part of the terrain, he actually did miss a step, briefly falling down a small decline.  He sprang right back up, dusting himself off, and the team glanced at him and then rolled their eyes as they went back to consulting each other, not much caring that the intern had actually contributed a few really useful tidbits so far (he wanted to keep them from finding Derek, not to humiliate them.)

Derek heard a very familiar voice in the distance, and he paused from where he was currently climbing a very large tree. "No way." He muttered to himself. "Get it together, Hale."

Stiles winced internally at how he was letting himself be shoved aside, out of sight and mind, by the people he so wanted to impress and work with.  His dad would whap him upside the head if he could see him now.  Then again, his dad would already have Derek in his sights, and the two of them would probably be trading insults or playing poker by now.

When the team walked underneath the tree Derek was perched on, he stared intently at the little spazz he'd known for years now. He needed to get Stiles out of here, away from harm, but he couldn't do that with a swarm of FBI surrounding the boy.

Stiles got a familiar prickle at the back of his neck--they were in the sights of a predator, possibly whatever was leaving a musty, old-mashed-potatoes scent around here.  He sniffed the air, covering it by rubbing his nose when someone glanced toward him.  "Hey, what're these?" he pointed out eagerly toward a clump of broken and uprooted clubmoss that looked odd but, he knew, belonged there.  Though, maybe not with the weird stringy stuff.  "Could be transfer from another location, come off of his feet as he went toward those trees over there, maybe?  Or fibers off of something he was wearing, maybe stolen clothes?"

"Could be." One of the team members collected the moss as evidence.

Derek watched and waited, and when Stiles was far enough from the team, he snagged hold of the back of his shirt and covered his mouth, pulling him out of sight. "What are you DOING here?" he demanded quietly.

Stiles blinked hard.  "Oh, hi, buddy, long time no see, I'm fine, thanks for asking, just out here enjoying the day and trying to keep *your* mangy butt out of federal custody!"

"Stiles, why are you not home? In school?"

"Um.  Dude.  I'm interning."  Stiles held out the badge on the lanyard around his neck.

"Fake internship? Seriously?"

"What makes you think it's fake?  Does it not look real?"  Stiles was amused.

"You're still in high school, Stiles," Derek reminded him.

"Wow.  Somebody's gettin' a calendar for Christmas."  Stiles tried to straighten his white dress shirt and dark tie with some dignity.  "We graduated, Derek.  Scott's at UC Davis, Lydia's at MIT, Malia's scaring the crap out of every single guy in Paris, and I'm interning with the FBI.  Which is currently hunting you for mass murder."

Derek stared at him. "Graduated? Already?" He sighed. "Okay look, there is a very nasty spider creature hunting me, and I need your team out of here before anyone else gets killed and I get blamed for it."

"Oh, well, if that's all it is?  Like, in case you failed to notice, I've been trying to keep them just out of reach of you."  He sighed.  "Lemme think of a plan.  I'll figure out how to get them out of here; meet me here at dark.  I'll bring the Raid."

"No, you get out of here, too. I mean it, Stiles, I don't have the pack here to back me up, and this is too dangerous for you."

Stiles snorted.  "You're kidding, right?  'Cause you've been doing so hot yourself--there've been sightings of your *naked self* for three states.  People say you're insane.  You're alone out here, and clearly, you need me.  Besides, I'm a fed now.  I'm armed."  He blinked self-consciously.  "Well, okay, almost armed.  I have to pass some stupid training course before they'll give me a gun.  But I bet I can find a bat."

"No." Derek said firmly. "Now, get back to your team before they start looking for you."  He had released him a bit ago.

Stiles rolled his eyes, muttering about idiots with more ego than ear hair.  He straightened his tie again.  "Fine. I see what your gratitude looks like."  Stiles headed off to find the task force... only to realize that they hadn't noticed he was gone.  He missed the pack.

That night, Derek was ready to leave, having used contacts to get a ride to the coast, where a ship was waiting to sail him down to South America.

Stiles did get a can of Raid... and a taser, and a can of cheap hair spray, and a lighter.  And a bat.  Spider creature was going down, so he could go back to Quantico and enjoy not having to save some stupid werewolf every five minutes.

Derek was literally about to head to the road where he was supposed to meet Dane, when he smelled Stiles. "Stupid stubborn human." He growled, heading to him.  

Stiles had a plan.  Of course, that plan went all to crap a few minutes in.  "Coulda *told* me how big it was," he muttered in what he imagined was Derek's general direction as he tried not to get stabbed, skewered, eaten, or trussed up.  Old mashed potato was not his color.

Derek charged, and tackled the creature. "Run!" He ordered as he growled and roared at the creature.

Stiles took in the new situation, and ran... about fifteen feet, to where his bag of tools had gotten flung.  He skidded to a stop over it, already frantically reaching in for the hairspray and lighter.  He scampered back to the fray, staying at the edges and just out of reach.  "Hey, Kumo-face!  Ya shoulda stayed in Japan!"  He waited for the spider to turn to him full-on, and then he lit up the night with burning Aquanet.  Soooo many more uses than just 80s bangs.

It worked enough for Derek to be able to sink his claws into the spider's neck and slash it, killing the creature.

"Shyeaaaaaaah!  Teamwork, baby!"  Stiles stuck his hand in the air for a high-five.

Derek, covered in blood and spider guts, grabbed a clean shirt out of his bag and took the filthy one off. He changed, and then glared at Stiles. "I told you to leave."

Stiles rolled his eyes so hard that his head rolled with them.  He put his hand down and checked himself for blowback.  "Can't tell me anything, Hale.  Still not my alpha, even if I had one.  And considering that I just saved your butt, *again,* you can just choke on the whole 'throat-ripping' threat that I know is coming."

"You're right, that threat was never serious. But this is." Derek grabbed his arm, and sat down on a log before hauling the human over his lap. He started spanking the jean-covered behind with hard, fast swats. "When are you going to learn that you aren't infallible?"

Stiles was totally flummoxed (and a little bit vertigoed) by the rapid change from standing to staring at the ground over Derek Hale's lap.  He knew what was happening because his dad used to... do this to him before his mother died.  He hadn't ever been... this... by anyone else, though, and he didn't remember it hurting nearly this much.  And what the heck?!  Was Derek Hale *seriously*... doing this to him, *after* Stiles had saved his ungrateful butt once again??  Stiles was muttering angrily about that when Derek's question registered in his brain.  "Infallible?  Dude, hello, nogitsune!  I almost 'fallibled' everyone I knew to death!  I didn't come here thinking I couldn't be wrong--I came here thinking that *you* probably shouldn't, you know, die out here!  Or in a cell!"  It was getting hard to talk around the pain, but he managed it for that long.

"And I appreciate that, but you are HUMAN, you idiot. It takes less than a fraction of my strength to break you literally in half, and I LIKE you. What do you think would happen to you with a spider creature bent on killing you?!" Derek scolded, continuing to spank every inch of his behind.

Stiles was fighting to hold onto his anger, to keep the awful sting at bay and pretend that he had some modicum of control.  Once again, though, something Derek said broke through his defenses. "Wh-wait--gah!--you *like* me??  Since f-ahhh!-freakin' when?!?"

"Are you really that dense? Do you really think I'd have left you ALONE with my sister as sick as she was, if I didn't like you?"

Stiles really didn't have an answer for that, but it had startled him out of his anger enough that he couldn't focus now on anything but the pain.  "Whadyouwanfrommeeeee??" he asked (he did not wail, he didn't, not at all, nope.)

"I want you to NOT take stupid, unnecessary risks!" Derek scolded and stopped spanking. He stood Stiles up, ignoring the tears on his cheeks; and shook him once. "It's one thing to go into danger with a plan and backup; it's another to go in not knowing the situation and not having backup. You didn't know if I was even still here, and you still went.  Do NOT ever do that again or so help me, you will be back over my knee, and I’ll be spanking your bare behind."

Part of Stiles' mind wanted to point out that if Derek had been gone, it would have been up to Stiles to protect everyone from the Kumo, anyway.  He might've muttered that out loud as he was trying to process the rest.  Somehow, he was more freaked out by the idea of Derek... doing that to him again, sans clothing, than he ever had been about the throat thing (maybe because he'd never entirely believed that one.  This one, he believed.)  But his mouth was once again connected to only part of his brain, so without realizing it, he asked, "How would you know?"

"Stiles, I know you. And once this mass murder thing is taken care of, I'm going home."

"Home?"  There was maybe a thread of hope mixed in with the hefty dose of cynicism.  Derek could help look after Liam and Mason and Cory.  "You were leaving for Beacon Hills?  Did you call my dad?  He'll help with the whole FBI thing."

And so would Stiles, he realized. He was right back to protecting Derek.

"No, I was going to stay in South America until I could clear my name. THEN I was going to come home."

"Oh."  Stiles sniffled unwittingly as he thought about that.  "Just go home, Derek.  We'll clear your name.  Tell her to come home, too."

"Cora's not coming back. It's too hard for her, after Boyd..." Derek explained.

Stiles felt a pang of sadness at that.  He wasn't totally surprised; she'd lost so much at such an early age, only to gain and lose more on her return, that the town probably tasted like blood and ashes to her.  "Well..."  He sniffled.  "Tell her I said hi."

"I will, but we need to talk about this. Put yourself in danger like that again unnecessarily, and I'm serious, Stiles. I don't care how old you are, I will bust your behind."

Stiles dragged his eyes up to Derek's.  He should be furious.  Part of him was.  Problem was, that was a relatively small part; the rest of him was.... he wasn't sure what the rest of him was.  He knew, obviously, that his dad loved him, and that Scott and Lydia loved him, and that Malia would probably not let a bear eat him (she teased him that he needed to wear a shiny shirt if he expected her to be interested enough to rescue his scrawny butt.)  But it had been a *long* time since anyone had done anything more than yell at him or ground him when he'd crossed a line.  Well, the Hunt didn't count.  "Wow, dude," he muttered weakly, "I've met Huntsmen less handsy than you."

"Well, suck it up, buttercup," Derek said firmly. "Now, go back to your hotel. I'm leaving and won't be back for a while, but I WILL be back, and I WILL be keeping tabs."

"You wouldn't even know where I was.  I could wind up anywhere on a case."

"I have contacts, Stiles, many of them. Trust me, I'll know."

Stiles opened his mouth to argue with that... but then he looked into Derek's eyes again, and realized that he would not take that bet.  "Why?" he asked softly.

"Because I care, because somebody needs to, and with Scott and the others on the other side of the country, you need somebody to keep tabs on you. It's what pack does."

Stiles wanted to know why Derek cared, but it was easier (and safer) to focus on something else.  "Since when are we pack?"

"Since the day you helped save my life and held me up in a pool when I was paralyzed."

Stiles blinked, gaping a little.  Like most of this evening, he wasn't planning what came out of his mouth.  "What?  You couldn't have *told* me that then?  You just kept acting like... like you!"

"I don't do emotions well." Derek shrugged.

"Dude.  That's not 'doesn't do emotions well.'  My dad doesn't do emotions well... or didn't before May.  That's more the level of 'moves to Miami to avoid seasons.'"

"Yeah, well, sue me." Derek shrugged. "Look, I need to go before the ship leaves without me. Just....stay out of trouble, okay?"

Stiles wiped at his itchy face.  "Shouldn't be too hard, a whole freakin' continent away from werewolves... Oh, wait," he said dryly with a look at Derek.  Then he looked away, finally facing the embarrassment of crying in front of Derek.  Maybe it was all the crap he'd dealt with this spring, but it didn't bother him as much as it should.  The idea of another person caring about what happened to him... "Didn't forget about me..." (he whispered)

Derek moved before he thought about it, and he pulled him into a hug. "Nope, and I won't. See you around, Stiles." He let go, and headed for the road.

Stiles sniffled and rubbed a couple of times at his face, and then at his still-flaming backside (yeah, that didn't help.)  He watched Derek walk away, a little bit tempted to call him back and take him straight back to BH, but he resisted; trashing his career so early in the game wouldn't help anyone.  As he turned and headed back for the hotel, wincing with every step for the first mile or so and carrying his bag of tricks over one shoulder, he did text his dad and ask the sheriff to low-key keep an eye out for any way to help Derek, to bring the lone wolf back home to his pack... where he belonged.

                    The End.


End file.
